Nice straw man. First, ethos is bullshit man, don’t idolize people or institutions to the point you think they’re infallible.

Second, you aren’t making the same claim as the source. And I’m not contradicting it (Harvard’s research). The source rightfully states that their survey found high satisfaction in government, higher than in most other countries. The original paper is on how those reports seem to be increasingly positive overtime and show that development of rural areas correlates with increased reports of happiness in that survey.

The researchers question the validity of their results because they are abnormally high and list possible other factors influencing the data. One of the researchers states that they believe the abnormally high levels are likely due other factors like the “highly positive news proliferated throughout the country” so I’m not doubting Harvard I’m actually agreeing with it

Lastly, my concern over data collection doesn’t actually apply to Harvard. I’m reasonably certain that Harvard did the best with the data they were given. And the Ash Center used that data to create their little positive promotional brief well too.

The research done by Harvard seems sound, as are my concerns about the validity of the collected data and my statement that this kind of data cannot be used to draw conclusions on the actual state of democracy or the actual workings of the government.

Fuck it maybe I’ll just send the researchers an email about it tomorrow and see if they respond. I’ve gotten responses from physicists and mathematicians before, might be fun

To be fair I doubt that would change your mind since you seem dead set on ignoring my actual argument. If they agree with me you’ll just say they’re producing propaganda for the western elites haha. But hey chances are the researcher will actually engage me in real discussion which would be nice